Our beloved friend, mentor, editor, Martin Delahoussaye, recently passed. We thank Martin for serving as an amazing editor as our first books, Emotional Intelligence in Action, The Emotionally Intelligent Team and the accompanying TESI Short, and A Coach’s Guide to Emotional Intelligence came into being at Pfeiffer, a Division of Wiley and Sons. He paved the way for Lisa Shannon and Holly Allen and many others at Wiley to continue the wonderful editing and full support we receive from them. Martin was exacting in insisting on quality, for which we are forever grateful. He became a wonderful friend, and we delight in taking some of the credit for his meeting our friend Diana Durek. They enjoyed a marriage reflecting so much love that they demonstrated what it means to live with emotional and spiritual intelligence. Martin left Wiley in 2007 and became Vice President of Publishing at HRDQ where we continued to work with him on the TESI Short and related materials. Martin’s influence for the betterment of our world will continue for many many years through our books and the uncountable other works by so many other authors he worked with and then through the readers and those benefiting from what is learned from these works. Thank you, Martin, we miss you greatly. Dear Diane, you and Martin were most fortunate to have shared in each other’s love, and it extended from you both to delight and inspire so many.

Gratitude is a calling of our time. How do we get through times that seem to emphasize what divides us or hurts us? It is by noticing what we are grateful for and saying so out loud. We are grateful to each and every one of you. Thank you. If there are times that gratitude seems difficult, remember It is in forgiveness that we find peace, joy and love. Let’s exercise those muscles more!

Every evening near the end of your day, write down 5 things that happened that day for which you are grateful. Then spend a few minutes quietly absorbing your gratitude and feeling the peace, calm and positive energy that flows through you. Breathe. Do this for at least 21 days in a row. Some have found making this a lifelong practice serves them.

Another strategy our niece, Liz, practices is to exchange a gratitude message with a friend every day. That morning exchange of messages starts the day off with the right note.

Thank you, dear friends, colleagues and readers, for being a part of the Collaborative Growth family.

Happy is good! Good for your health, for your decision-making, for your relationships….. Heck, what isn’t it good for?

It’s good for our world economy – a stretch? Maybe, but what about the recreation dollars we spend even if we’re just driving to a great hike in the forest and taking a picnic. And happy people have more capacity to slug through the difficult conversations to get to good collaborative decisions. Tell that to the G-20 – or even the G-7 leaders!

We build resilience, defined as the ability to recover quickly from setbacks and elasticity, as in the ability to spring back after things are bent out of shape. Resilience is enhanced through play, through relaxing and through nourishing reflecting. Play regularly to be prepared for life’s twists and turns.

It makes other people happy.

You can get good exercise and increase your cardio vascular functioning.

Brain health and well-being.

We satisfy our own developmental need to be creative and feel competent.

We can be more creative while playing with novel possibilities in an environment where we can be flexible and relaxed.

To interact and be reflective without it seeming so serious – “Hey, why did we miss that grounder when Holly hit it?” “What shall our team do next time?”

Play has been described as unplanned behavior, in other words activity that emerges and evolves spontaneously from within its own context. It occurs in a climate that facilitates creativity and innovation. Young children accomplish the majority of their most critical early learning through play. But guess what, adults learn best in the same sort of attitude — relaxed curiosity. We just don’t emphasize play nearly as much as can serve us. For children play is considered valuable because it develops their social relationship skills, helps build positive interactions between the child and their classmates, and provides the chance to let off a bit of steam (reduce or prevent anger). It also builds on their skills of sharing and taking turns. Isn’t this what we want for ourselves, our families and our teams? Of course it is!

At Collaborative Growth we’re declaring July as a great month for playing. We hope you take time to enjoy this beautiful month whether it’s quite sunny for you in the northern part of our globe or snow is whitening your world in the southern hemisphere.

We also want to express our gratitude for Freedom. In the United States where we live, July 4th is the day we celebrate our nation’s Independence. Let us all embrace freedom with our intentions that really includes liberty and justice for all to help build a world that works. Neurologists assure us that seeing requires believing so let’s join our combined vision in seeing a world that works for all!

The national and international political conversations are making it even tougher to be positive and productive in the workplace! If your team ever suffers from cynicism, a lack of trust, or poor communication, please attend our new webinar: EI and Teamwork in the Times of DISTRUST. If there are no such struggles on your team, “Get back to work!” Don’t waste company time on our cool invite. Otherwise, we invite you to Register Now.

In 2006 Martin Delahoussaye, our editor at Wiley & Sons, suggested that we write a book on how emotional intelligence can improve the quality of teamwork. They had published Lencioni’s groundbreaking work on the five dysfunctions four years earlier and wanted something that would examine effective teamwork through the lens of EI.

Our book, The Emotionally Intelligent Team pioneered how developing behavioral competencies in seven different areas like Motivation and Conflict Resolution could improve friendliness and team performance. Next Martin asked us to develop an assessment for measuring these seven competencies, and that resulted in the TESI®, the Team Emotional and Social Intelligence Survey®.

The TESI has been used to help teams working in historical flashpoints like Gaza, Kosovo, Haiti, and South Africa, in leading global businesses such as Apple, American Express, Medtronic, and in local, state, and federal government agencies.

After nine years of administrations of the TESI, we would like to share with you what TESI associates worldwide have learned about using EI to offset what Lencioni called the number one cause of dysfunctional teamwork – DISTRUST, but we’re not going to make you wait that long. The webinar will be June 7th at noon EDT. Register Now

You will learn how to assess your team in these seven skill sets and what you can do right now to reduce conflict, improve performance and build positivity among your team’s members. Please join us!

Does your team expand its skills when faced with conflict? One of the questions on the TESI team survey, is“Ourdisputesstimulateteamproductivity.”Howwouldyouanswerthatquestionaboutyourteam? Ifyoufindyouandyourteamhaveroomtogrow,oneof thekeystrategiesistodevelopteamskillsin divergentthinking,whichistheabilitytothinkalongdifferentperspectivesandtoconsideroneanother’s differentperspectives. Conflictjustis–whatmakesitusefulordestructivecomesfromtheattitude and capabilities of those charged with responding to theconflict. Those capabilities are built withemotionalandsocial intelligence(ESI).Sevencompetenciesrequiredforteamsuccess are identified in The Emotionally Intelligent Team.Thesesevenareassessedby the Team Emotional and Social Intelligence Survey® (TESI®). Conflict resolution is one of the seven competencies, and it’s theonethatteamsstrugglewiththemost.

Nine elements compose a team’s skill in handling conflict. These include skills in patience and willingness to work problems through, the ability to use the ESI skills of empathy and assertiveness, recognizing and working with differences in personality among team members, and the ability to choose different strategies for resolving conflict according to the specific circumstances of an individual event. For example, a team must choose their battles causing them to avoid some problems. And there are times it pays to be competitive rather than cooperative or collaborative—although competitive benefits may be limited to a stimulating challenge such as the first one to solve a complex problem gets a free lunch. One of the most important skills for success is to be able to invite and consider different perspectives. This is the powerful skill of divergent thinking – and it’s a solid success differentiator.

At Collaborative Growth, we conducted a study evaluating TESI results of team conflict resolution skills to consider the relationship of conflict resolution to skills in divergent thinking and in relationship to the other six competencies assessed by the TESI. We found a strong relationship between a team’s ability to appreciate and use divergent thinking and its effectiveness in solving conflicts.

Divergent thinking is a thought process or method that is essential to effective team work because it’s at the heart of the ability to generate ideas and to listen to highly different perspectives. It is often used for creative and problem-solving purposes. The goal of divergent thinking has several applications with the primary benefit being the capacity within the team to think along different lines and to feel safe and supported in discussing differences. It includes generating many different ideas about a topic in a short period of time and may involve breaking a topic down into component parts to gain insight about different aspects of the matter. In the best of circumstances, divergent thinking occurs in a spontaneous, free-flowing manner, such that the ideas are often generated in a random, unorganized fashion. During conflict, divergent thinking requires strength at the individual and team level to think about alternative scenarios even when there may be a strong temptation to protect the original way of assessing a problem. Working in an environment safe for divergent thinking supports Collaborative Intelligence™, the pinnacle of team emotional and social intelligence as reflected by the TESI team model.

In the best situation, divergent thinking by team members or the team as a whole is followed by the ideas and information being organized using convergent thinking, that is, putting the various ideas back together in a new organized and structured way. Without divergent thinking, teams cannot reach the payoff of in-depth consideration before arriving at convergent thinking, because they haven’t fully considered the problem they are seeking to address. Yet, diverse thinking can be difficult at a team level in part because of a process known as groupthink. Janis demonstrated the effects of groupthink by describing that even after groups become aware of the risks of an unfavorable process, they’ll go along with it because of the pressure for achieving group consensus. ESI is a big help in preventing groupthink. Being aware of emotions around the team, and having effective response strategies, will support the courage to get beyond the compulsion to agree with one another.

Teams work best when team members welcome different perspectives and feel safe in resolving conflict because they know that doing so can lead to increased productivity and a better work environment. Tips for growing conflict resolution skills are found in Chapter Seven in TheHandbookforDevelopingEmotionalandSocialIntelligence.Thatchaptersummarizesour research on divergent thinking and provides manyideas for helping teams expand their skills in working with positive and negative emotions.

If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner. Nelson Mandela

Effective leadership across an organization is the key differentiator to maintaining competitive advantage and organizational performance. Creating organization culture that supports ease in communication, dealing with conflict, collaboration and mutual respect establishes success for the organization and loyalty from leaders and their staff. Yet, creating a cohesive culture is harder now than ever given that our 24/7 news cycle and polarized politicians seem to be scaring everyone to one side or the other of value-laden issues.

Organizational culture is impacted by society’s brewing fear and discord.

Today’s leaders are challenged when members of their workforce view change and tasks from very different lenses resulting in increasing fear and discord.

Leaders who have grappled with these challenges include Abraham Lincoln, Angela Merkel, Nelson Mandela and Sheryl Sandberg. Every leader faces cultural challenges, these four leaders demonstrate the strategies that differentiate those who can surmount cultural hurdles and build engagement thus preventing the organization from sinking into divisiveness. Success requires building emotional intelligence, managing change and influencing in a manner that creates a sustainable environment where people can and will communicate and build bridges.

Four strategies that differentiate successful leaders are:

Intentional & Positive Strategy

Accountability

Common Language – Unified and Integrated Use of Assessments

Inspiring Purpose

Intentional and positive strategies call for evaluating your organizations state with honesty and clarity. What’s really going on? What are the first level staffers, seeing, feeling and hearing? State your intention to the workforce to pay attention and continue to build a positive

and engaging workplace. A positive outlook opens new neuronal pathways so unexplored opportunities become available. With hope, new energy and creativity is invited. Keep your eye on the ball and on any initiatives. Show the staff this is a reliable change, not a flickering thought that will be gone by next week.

Accountability to the change at all levels of the organization is essential. This is often the most forgotten step, perhaps because it can be uncomfortable to hold people accountable. Ignore it at your peril! You and your change will be tested multiple times. It’s key to notice and respond to those challenges to show you mean business.

Common Language follows from a unified and integrated use of assessments. When leaders and employees are using development and engagement language in a common way, there’s tremendous power to calibrate workplace engagement. This language comes from trainings and from the assessments used. We suggest you carefully chose the assessments to be applied in your organization and then intentionally work to build language that’s used in common. Assessments to consider include:

Personality – such as MBTI or Emergenetics, and consider topic specific personality assessments such as the Change Style Indicator and the Influence Style Indicator.

Skills – in terms of managing yourself and responding effectively to others, there’s no substitute for the EQi!

360 for leaders. To build personal and interpersonal awareness and expanding skills the EQ 360 is powerful. Other good assessments include CCL’s Benchmarks. Additional specific value can be gained from more targeted 360s such as the Discovery Leadership Profile and the Emerging Leaders Profile.

Change – the Change Style Indicator, CSI, serves organizations powerfully by helping people understand their personality differences in how they respond to change and then being able to adjust their approach and expectations realistically.

Influence – the Influence Style Indicator

The Change Navigator focuses on the emotions of individuals as they navigate change and the stages of transition. It’s a powerful way for a team to take their pulse and understand how they’re doing individually and together. Different emotional responses show-up when Resisting change and to emotions that lead to Resilience.

Inspiring Purpose is supported by giving super respect to all involved in your organization. Super-respect introduces new awareness and connectivity.

Successful leaders will use their skills to understand the diversity of their workforce and how to approach change and influence their staff and co-workers. Then they will apply emotional intelligence skills to accomplish the desired behavioral change.

Leaders are role models; people will follow your example. Is that a good thing?

Divisiveness in the external world is impacting organizational culture. When family members question sharing holidays because they don’t want to hear each other’s differing views, it is certain similar impacts are happening in the workplace. This creates a clarion call for leaders to proactively build an environment that supports connection over separation. We are discussing this vital topic in our webinar.

The source of this sharp discord is often based in value differences and that is what makes many so intransigent. For example, if someone believes it’s only right if people are treated X and someone else says no X – 3 is plenty for some people, emotional responses will be triggered. It’s likely both perspectives can be well argued, but they are hard to hear for the person disagreeing. This can lead to cliques and factions just when you need people to spark creativity in one another because they can think differently. What can a leader do?

Leaders need to start with evaluating their workforce and organizational culture. However, before they can evaluate others, leaders must first be personally accountable. Ask yourself how attached you are to your point of view and your opinions – are you open to hearing very different perspectives? When a position is important to you, can you listen and have a coherent discussion with a colleague or staff person who disagrees? Or do you just walk away? Leaders are role models; people will follow your example. Is that a good thing?

Now discern how your workforce is doing by reaching out and actively listening. You might create a task force to lead the effort. Ask questions and take notes in order to respond.

“How are you and your team mates getting along?”

“Are you having full discussions or do you stop in order to avoid conflict?”

“Are there people here you’re avoiding that you used to work well with?”

“On a scale of 1-10 where is our trust level riding these days?”

Give them a sense of how you see issues being discussed, and tell them how you feel. “I feel ___ because _____.” Then actively listen and role model how to respond to one another. “It sounds like maybe you feel ___ because ______.”

Talk about what you are learning while using all your smarts – IQ and EQ. if there’s an elephant in the room, expose the discord in a manner that keeps the conversation safe for exploration. That means that above all else everyone is treated with respect. Leaders are responsible for insisting on a safe environment that maintains the value that while disagreements happen, there can also be very solid areas of agreement. You want your staff to be able to move on from the difficult conversation and continue their work together with a willingness to listen and share.

Once understanding is gained on workforce connectivity, leaders need to guide the desired change that can expand collaboration over separation. In doing so, success requires understanding the personalities of leaders and staff related to making changes. Data helps guide strategically targeted interventions. The Change Style Indicator® (CSI) identifies three styles of change. Through this assessment people find they are Conservers (prefer to accept the structure and make incremental change), Pragmatists (will explore the structure and support change that is functional), or Originators (comfortable with challenging the structure and preferring expansive change). These are big differences, and it is quite possible all preferences are represented in your workforce. To implement the change successfully people preferring each of the change approaches need to be brought on board. Without doubt, it’s tempting to say “Just do it!” The problem is that quick dictate can’t change internal states that are leading to the divisiveness. A defined viable path needs to be created. The foundation of change is strengthened with mutually agreed values, such as everyone deserves to be respected. Then use flexibility to gain buy-in and changed behavior from the whole staff through process that influence change and show how with emotional intelligence skills.

Throughout this process leaders are influencing people to change their behavior. No one can make someone else hold different values or communicate differently. What leaders can do is invite changes, demonstrate the inclusive language, hold staff accountable and use many other strategies to influence success. Once again, data helps. The Influence Style Indicator™ guides leaders and staff to understand the approaches they now use and to recognize how to expand their repertoire of influence strategies. Leaders charged with building rapport and engagement need to select influencing approaches that walk their talk. Two orientations are possible – advocating or uniting. Then having chosen the overall approach the specific styles a leader might employ are rationalizing, asserting, negotiating, inspiring and bridging. It is easy to argue that for a change such as building collaboration through improved communications and patience that inspiring and bridging are the best strategies. However, use caution in narrowing your style. Check out the preferences in the workforce. For example, sometimes assertiveness is required to set boundaries for what is acceptable.

Emotional intelligence skills contain the wherewithal to actually make the changes once leaders have selected their change and influence strategies. Making cultural shifts of this importance can well call on all 16 skills of the EQi. The most impactful are:

Emotional self-awareness

Empathy

Impulse control

Assertiveness

Optimism – and Happiness

These are skills that can be learned, sharpened and tailored to specific circumstances. Many of our books and other articles show you how.

Demonstration of super respect, with reciprocity, makes the fundamental difference. This introduces new awareness and connectivity. Successful leaders will use their skills to understand the diversity of their workforce and how to approach change and influence their staff and co-workers. Then they will apply emotional intelligence skills to accomplish the desired behavioral change.

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

George Bernard Shaw

We are often asked to work with leaders, staff and organizations to guide them in improving their conflict resolution and communications skills. It is an honor to have this opportunity, one we don’t take lightly. Our intention is to facilitate a transformative process that results in sustainable behavior change. Reaching that long term goal requires investment by the individual, team or organization and the coach/facilitator.

Make no mistake about it; this is about making significant change and usually from deeply imbedded habits. Change is Hard Work – it’s possible yet it requires focused commitment and practice. Coaching individuals & teams to change, grow and produce requires:

Understanding (the cognitive part)

Commitment (the inspirational part)

Practice (the determined part)

Feedback (the collaborative part)

Success is built through following our four step process to improving conflict resolution skills. If sustainable change is desired, none of these steps can be missed and the dimensions of understanding, commitment, practice and feedback must be interwoven throughout the engagement.

Step One: Diagnosis and Willingness

The first step is making the decision to seek coaching and facilitation to help an individual or team to improve their conflict resolution and communication skills. You’ve heard the maxim that a stitch in time saves nine. However, it’s likely that by the time this decision is made there’s considerable challenge. Nevertheless, build these skills as soon as possible, the earlier you can intervene the better, even if you only save four stitches instead of nine.

At the beginning we normally ask the participant(s) to take one or two assessments, the EQi for individuals and teams will take the TESI or both the EQi and the TESI. All individual responses are confidential and used only to support development. This allows the participants and the coach to have data on the current state of skills and

competencies and to highlight both areas that need to be improved as well as existing strengths that can facilitate the change process. The EQi2.0® reflects one’s overall well-being and ability to succeed in life. It explores the role that sixteen different elements of emotional well-being play in one’s life, by applying the fifteen skills in this model together with happiness as an indicator of emotional and social well-being. How one uses skills such as assertiveness, empathy, impulse control and optimism significantly influences their communications and conflict resolution success.

The TESI® (Team Emotional and Social Intelligence Survey®) is an internal 360 which measurers the team’s performance on seven team competencies including communications, conflict resolution and stress tolerance. Team members rate the team’s performance and then the aggregated results are presented to the team, with each individual’s scores remaining confidential. This allows team members to speak frankly with one another and quickly advances the discussion to building a successful action plan.

Willingness to honestly review current behaviors and results is central to making meaningful change. Fortunately, we don’t need 100% willingness at the beginning. There needs to be agreement to participate, however the vigor with which the participant(s) engage usually expands over time. As they perceive the possibility that they don’t have to stay stuck in this uncomfortable pattern and gain a sense of safety and trust in the process, willingness to make change usually grows significantly.

Step Two: Recognition and Ownership

Before a person buys into making personal change, he/she must recognize that the current way isn’t working. They need to take ownership of their own behavior and how that contributes to the difficult situations. At first it seems much easier to blame someone else – “It’s my bosses fault” or “It’s my team member’s fault” or “My organization doesn’t give us enough resources or time to do it right.” There could well be some truth in any of these statements, but they are not the point of the individual’s power. We can only change ourselves. Yet, fortunately, our changed behavior often leads to different responses. If an individual who used to create difficult conversations instead responds with collaborative invitations to work together, they are likely to receive a different response, although it may take a few times before the change is trusted.

Others, such as the team or organizational system likely contribute to the challenges. Often one person is treated as the Identified Problem yet it’s really a systemic issue. Frequently, the individual does contribute significantly to the difficulties occurring; however, they are very seldom alone in creating the difficulties. Thus in individual coaching we need to work with the individual to take full responsibility for their behaviors and to embrace learning to be more successful. Additionally, it is very useful when we also work with the team leader, the whole team or other key individuals to address how they are working together. Nevertheless, even if the others in the process won’t participate in recognizing and making changes, the coaching can be significantly beneficial for the individual. They will still gain skills that improve their engagement, are likely to enhance their productivity and reduce the negative feedback they receive. Sometimes these benefits play out more effectively in new situations rather than the on-going challenge area. The benefits of these behavior changes are certain to impact both their professional and personal lives as conflict shows up everywhere.

As a part of the recognition, the participant(s) need to understand what their challenges are as they respond to conflict. Are they avoiding, aggressive, or unreliable in that they don’t follow-through? These can be challenges for anyone, however, the problem to the team and organization is multiplied when these are challenges are held by the team leader. Then many people suffer the consequences of their poor conflict management.

Step Three: Learning New Behaviors

This is the role up your sleeves and build new habits time. It involves are four components of understanding, commitment, practice and feedback. As the cognitive awareness is developed of what occurs when their responses are curt and perfunctory, and the participant(s) become curious about what else they could do, we are starting to build commitment, the inspirational part. This is quite important to supporting the determination needed to start practicing the new ways. Finally, feedback will help to in fine tuning their approach, learning the right nuancing and getting it right. Both introverts and feisty people may not want to respond to feedback. This reluctance comes from different reasons, but can have the same consequences of not building the new relationships needed. Thus part of the coaching we do focuses on how to work with feedback as they begin using their new skills.

Key skills from the EQi that particularly influence conflict resolution skills are: impulse control, empathy, assertiveness, problem solving, flexibility and optimism. All 16 skills are influential because of the complexity of working with conflict, but these 6 are at the core of effective functioning with conflict. Let’s say that Jill has taken the EQi, which reports lower scores in impulse control and empathy. She talks over people, responds hastily, is highly judgmental and will tell her direct reports abruptly how they are failing, but seldom offers solutions or helps them make changes. She seldom recognizes their successes. You can imagine that it’s hard working on her team.

She has come to us for coaching on how to improve her work with her direct reports because her performance review calls out these ineffective behaviors. First, we will help Jill understand the process of working with emotions as reflected in this graph that shows the circle of emotions. We would work with Jill to understand the consequences of her approaches, build her optimism that she can change and help her understand how valuable that change will be. Next we will work with her to articulate specifically how she is interacting with her direct reports. Together we will diagnose the trouble spots so new approaches can be identified and practiced. For example, if a direct report is speaking she needs to not rudely interrupt, but listen and then respond. Jill can create reasonable boundaries up front to let them know she only has five minutes before her next meeting if necessary, and then set a better time to fully deal with the matter. There are many specific and concrete skills that she can begin applying that can greatly change her success.

If Jill’s team is also involved we will have them take the TESI and work with them on how they are participating in resolving conflict, which will necessarily include other competencies, especially communications. Through this process we can build enhanced resourcefulness throughout the team. As everyone gets better at working through difficult issues, the team’s success will improve and Jill’s changes can be more effective and likely will be more appreciated.

Step Four: Implementation – Practice, Fine Tune, Practice

This is the follow through stage that requires diligence and has the most positive payoffs. It involves the components of commitment, practice and feedback. A key part of coaching is to help pace the process of change so that her work builds her success and isn’t so overwhelming that the changes aren’t practiced. In our example of Jill we will encourage her to practice some changes, get feedback and then fine tune her approach. As a few changes start working and become natural, we can work on new and perhaps more transformative changes. Deliberate steps and managing the magnitude of what she is asked to do will promote and anchor her success.

Overall, investing in leader, staff and team improvements in working through difficult challenges can be quite effective. Building effective buy-in to the process from all parties greatly contributes to success. It is valuable to make a sufficient investment so that all four stages are implemented.